Keyser Soze / Doug and Terrance

[Judy Panetta]

Kelly as nostalgic for the sixties..? Let me preface this explanation that I
wrote this as a first impression on reading this article. So forgive me
folks, if I do not have the research usually warranted here.

But let me try...there is in Kelly's article a tone that I found reminiscent
of the rhetoric of the "conservatives" in the sixties-early seventies. It
has to do with the logic. That is: to be critical of US policy meant that
one was anti-American...or a communist. This may be an example that is too
inflammatory at the moment. Let me try...

I remember being dazzled at the OSS classification of those who fought in
the Spanish Civil War -- PAFs (Premature Anti Fascists). It was not
surprising that those same participants eagerly joined the forces against
Hitler. These participants were considered security risks because of that
PAF classification. Theorizing that anti-fascism was pro-communism.

Don't you think this column had a "America-Love it or Leave it" feel to it?
Rather than lovin' it or leavin' it...can we consider that the efforts of
the "left" (oh, how frustrated I am by these terms) then as now is the
search for the "better angels of our nature."

But allow me now to digress. I felt so stricken by the attacks that I
thought my heart would burst. It was difficult for me to acknowledge that
any human being could do this to another. My apologies for stating the
obvious, but I tremble still in trying to simply wrap my imagination around
it. Then I remembered...

I interviewed a liberator of Buchenwald who described a smell so vile that
he was sick and said, "how could anyone do this?" Also, a Vietnamese refugee
describing the rape and disfiguration in the Thai camps ending with "how
could...?" The letter of a minister to his wife circa 1855 describing a form
of discipline whereby the slave was hung by his hands so that his feet just
barely graced spikes mounted below adding, "how could...?" There are more,
right? How often have we heard the phrase, "...stacked like cord wood?"

So then the effort to understand what situation, environment, culture (think
chem lab) that allows this to happen again because the horror is fortunately
too much to bare. I can only describe what is for me the screaming pleas for
it to stop.

How naive this must sound to some of you. But please know that I grasp the
complexities... Friend Terrance, it is a moot point to even ask for
statistics, don't you think? The wealth of information that is kept from the
general population on the grounds of national security, diplomacy, private
interests, intelligence, whatever, is so staggering that we can truly only
speculate and wait patiently for x, y, or z report to be declassified. We
can articulate what we would like to have happen but I believe that is the
extent of our power. But maybe...

Oh, cursed hope.

And blah, blah, blah. How I do go on.

What can I say? Give the pacifists a break and credit for at least added
dimension to the discussion.

Best, j


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]On
Behalf Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 1:48 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Keyser Soze / Doug and Terrance


This time I wasn't being ironic. I thought Kelly's basic point was
correct--that pacifists' advice to avoid use of military power in the
present situation is something that can be offered with complete impunity
only because there's no chance in Hell that anybody in authority will follow
it. Further there seemed to be the implication that the peace activists felt
just as reassued by this as any other American.


I usually dispise what Kelly has to say. As I said earlier he belongs on Fox
News. I don't approve of his use of words like phoney, fraud, liars, and
hypocrites. Don't agree with his:  "What they really mean is that war should
not be waged by them .It should be waged by other mothers's sons and
daughters." (It might have been fairer to say that not many of the
domonstrating college students consciously realize that they are going to
owe whatever future safety is obtained for them largely to poor African
Americans and Lower class white southerners out  doing the fighting)

I don't know what you mean by Kelly having "nostalgia for the sixties." Can
you elaborate? You don't mean do you that back in the 60s and the Vietnam
war the Left had something to talk about in comparison to now. Doubt if
Kelly would have such a thought. He's a "my country right or wrong" type guy
of the worst sort or so I would imagine.  This doesn't mean he can't be
basically correct in the current context.

        P.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Judy Panetta" <judy at firemist.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 10:14 AM
Subject: RE: Keyser Soze / Doug and Terrance


> To use a term favored on this list...Paul, are you being ironic? Do you
> really believe that Mr. Kelly is presenting a reasonable argument here?
Who
> was it that requested that Doug leave the sixties behind? What I found
most
> remarkable about this article is its rhetoric and Mr. Kelly's nostalgia
for
> the sixties.
>
> I envy the man. I wish that I could seek to understand the world with such
> graceful simplicity.
>
> Best, JP
>
>
>